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Untitled Article
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Untitled Article
about the history of a foreign bird , an ancient cathedral , or alluvial deposits , compared with a narrative of proceedings before a justice of the peace in the nei ghbourhood , or an account of the trials at the County Assizes ? Let not the fastidious censure the taste of the working classes for police intelligence . It has been well observed by Mr . Elliot , that s police reports are far better
digests of the laws which relate to the affairs of the poor , than are the term reports to the lawyers ; what the Lord Mayor or a Sir Richard Birnie says , is deemed by them to be of more consequence than what my Lord Lyndhurst or Lord Tenterden says . Kvery regulation that affects the poor man , every protection his few affairs require , are there explained , not by mere rules , illcomposed , but by individual and ever recurring facts . ' But this is not all , for he who reads these with interest and attention , will
not be long before he extends his course of reading . The habit once created , will become a necessary of life ; he will begin to take an interest , not only in domestic intelligence , but in what is doing in France , America , or Van Diemen ' s Land . Minds will not then exist without ^ deas ; those who now seek gratification in drink , will find higher and more intellectual enjoyments , and thus be raised from that state of semi-barbarism , in which many thousands bearing the name of Englishmen yet remain .
In alluding to the habit of drinking , so prevalent among the working classes , let it not be forgotten that the taxes upon knowledge are a positive temptation to intemperance . The poor man cannot now see a newspaper without first calling for liquor . If in search of employment he is anxious to look over the list of advertisements , or if desirous of reading the last accounts from
the Swan River , or other of the new settlements in which he would find a better market for his labour than in his own parish , he must repair to a public-house , for no where else can he procure the loan of a seven-penny journal , and thus the very means which might improve his mind , and raise him from the degradation of pauperism , are made instrumental to his moral debasement and ruin .
How long will this crying evil be permitted to endure ? We have now arrived at the second session of a reformed parliament ; will our Ministers , dare they , sutler it to pass over without the abolition of these iniquitous imposts ? God forbid that the clamour which has been raised against the assessed taxes , should be made the plea for postponing the repeal of the taxes on knowledge . Theta .
Untitled Article
The Taxes on Knowledge . 100
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 109, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/25/
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